


gotta get up, clean the place

by friendly_ficus



Series: from a much outdated style [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: AU where they're basically gods, Gen, moving the plot forward with this one folks, vague nods to canon and even vaguer nods to d&d
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-04-26 03:38:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14393496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendly_ficus/pseuds/friendly_ficus
Summary: In the weak sunlight of the early morning, the door to The Salty Orc tavern opens with a soft creak of hinges. Seven figures trail quietly out onto the road, moving down the path into the forest.Or: Some stories start with farewells.





	1. you'll just have to find a friend

  In the weak sunlight of the early morning, the door to The Salty Orc opens with a soft creak of hinges. Seven figures trail quietly out onto the road, moving down the path into the forest. One hangs back, a gnome in a resplendent purple hat.

  Scanlan Shorthalt ducks around the corner of the tavern, making his way to a large stagecoach where the members of Dr. Dranzel's Spectacular Traveling Troupe are packing up instruments and packages, joking with each other softly in the early morning. Scanlan glances around the group, nodding whenever a “morning, Burt” is directed his way. The Doc himself grins, toasting Scanlan with a nonexistent glass that the gnome tips his hat to. It was kind of the Troupe, to do him the favor of coming to this first meeting. (It took some measure of convincing to persuade them not to follow him the rest of the way - everyone still looks at him with concern, which was endearing weeks ago and now feels grating. And endearing still, damn them.) 

  He’s just turning back to the front of the tavern, to the path, to the future, when he hears a cough to his left. There’s no doubt his daughter is a natural performer, the emotion packed into that cough was a marvel, he turns to tell her - 

  Kaylie raises an eyebrow, challenging, cutting him off before he can start going on about it. “Is this supposed to be some kind of goodbye, then?”

  (They both ignore the tremor in her voice, the grip she has on her sword handle. She’s packed to follow him whether he wants her to or not, but last night he got her to promise,  _ look after the Troupe, they need you _ and  _ damn him _ she doesn’t break her word.)

  “Nah, you know I’m crap at goodbyes. But listen,” Scanlan begins.

  (There are three ways he will tell this story, he knows, and none of them will be true. In the first, Burt Reynolds, Esq. leaves a letter of farewells with Dr. Dranzel's Spectacular Traveling Troupe, in the hopes that the group will carry his body of work to their own futures. In the second story, a traveling magician whispers a message into a statue at the center of town, to be heard by his descendants when they are great kings. In the third, Francois Bertrand Jean-Luc Australia leaves a series of orders with his extensive underground network, to be carried out in the event of his death.)

  Truly, Scanlan Shorthalt meets his daughter's eyes, sure as anything, and says, “I’m going to fix the world, Kaylie, but then I’m gonna to come back.”

  She lunges forward and catches him in a rough embrace, over in a blink before she releases him. Kaylie’s eyes  _ are not wet _ no matter what anyone might think, as she snaps, “You fucking better, old man.” She turns away first, committed, and doesn’t look back.

  He grins as she walks away, before he turns and heads to the clearing where the other... well, the other six (like him? Not like him?) agreed to meet. He’s there quickly.

\---

  The birds chirp and chatter in the trees, luxuriating in the weak dawn as the twins look at each other. They’re a little ways away from the others, standing under a large tree with wide branches that cover a patch of the sky. Vex leans against the tree trunk, testing her bowstring, checking everything and then checking again. Vax is about four feet in front of her, standing in the darkest patch of shade and rocking on his heels, back and forth.

  “So...” Vax prompts, rocking back. He’s taking in the flickers of tension in his sister’s hands as she checks the sharpness of her arrows. 

  “So?” Vex reads the worry in her brother like it’s written on a storefront, blatantly in front of her. She makes her voice flippant on purpose, trying to ease him.  _ Don’t worry, _ she wants to say,  _ whatever happens, don’t worry about me. It’s going to be fine. _

  If he didn’t know her so well, Vax would take her tone at face value and ignore the tightness in her shoulders. Instead, he makes himself  **_sharper_ ** , catching his own outline and forcing it into place, solidifying the places where it has started mingling with the shade. This time when he rocks forward, some twigs snap under his feet. Vex looks up, startled by the sudden sound.

  Vax closes the distance between them, twigs cracking every step as his sister leans her bow back against the tree behind her. He pulls one of three daggers from his belt, sheath and all, and offers the handle to her. Vex wraps her hand around it and feels - it feels like his head on her shoulder, his hands braiding her hair, a promise - Vax. 

  Vex tugs a feather from her hair and tucks it into her brother’s same night-dark strands. “You’ll have to bring that back to me,” she jokes, but there’s iron in her spine. She’s sharp too, Vex’ahlia, without reaching for the other part of herself to back it up. Sometimes she feels sharp for days, weeks - she and Vax are different in that way. He’s soft, not weak but sort of covering things like his shadows, softening edges.

  “Call if you need me,” Vax says in a more distant voice, “I won’t be far from you.” And he walks away.

  Vex’ahlia frowns, stowing the dagger and picking up her bow. (It’s been sprouting roots, branches, seizing onto the great tree she leaned it against. A slow sprouting, but her mouth tightens as she tugs the weapon back into her hands.) A cloud passes over the sun, as a gust whips up the scent of dirt and wet leaves. 

  The forest carries her voice to her brother, right into his ear; “Be cautious, would you? You give too much of yourself, too easily.”

  A hundred feet away from her, Vax’ildan grumbles, “Do  _ not. _ ”

  It’s enough for a smile to break over Vex’s face, as she steps away from the tree.

  “Do too.”

\---

  Pike and Grog look at each other. The air is more tense than they’d like it to be, after a night of conversations. They share a moment, where Pike knows Grog thinks they can handle whatever comes, and Grog knows Pike thinks anything setting itself against them should watch its fuckin’ back. 

  “Buddy,” and it’s all Pike needs to say.

  “Monstah,” Grog offers her a low five. The  _ crack _ their hands make scatters a few of the birds from their trees.

  Side by side, they move to the center of the clearing where the group is gathering. 

\---

  The seven of them had spoken all night in that room in the tavern, gone around and around the table. This it the plan they’ve come up with:

  Vax, Pike, and Grog are heading to Vasselheim to get what information they can from the temples. Vex and Percy are going to the capital, to see if there are any insights to be found among the Sovereign and his advisors. Keyleth and Scanlan are going to Ank’harel, to talk to some people about some things. (In Scanlan’s dash over the world he’d been seeking fast solutions and fast answers, things he could find on his own. Now that they’re all together, they have the manpower to dig deeper.)

  They’ll go out, find what they can find, and meet back up... wherever they decide. Look, it’s a plan, okay? Honestly, these things weren’t designed to be simple.

\---

  Keyleth glances at the darkening sky - new clouds are rolling in, despite the previous storm - and sets her shoulders. She turns to the others, grouped up in the clearing, and opens her mouth to say, “Well, we should probably-”

  Vax shoots her a grin from where he is standing, with one hand on top of Pike’s head and the other on Grog’s elbow. He tips the three of them backwards into a sudden shadow, silent. There’s a  _ shudder _ through the clearing as a cold gust of wind stirs the trees. The shadow dissipates back into just shade, fading as the morning itself grows darker, and three of the people who are something like Keyleth have vanished from the clearing.

  “Don’t take it too personally, dear, my brother loves to make an exit.” Despite the sarcastic slant of Vex’s words, Keyleth sees the ghost of a smile around her mouth. Keyleth doesn’t know the twins well, but she pick up on an old... joke? argument? between them without too much issue.

  (Keyleth spent a lot of the previous night watching the others, and Vex and Vax are a little like birds, she thinks. They bicker and chatter with each other and sometimes they tilt their heads in  _ exactly _ the same way; the twins seem so in sync that Keyleth’s  _ still  _ surprised at the decision that they would separate for this. Well, it’s a fact-finding mission, it shouldn’t be too dangerous at least.)

  Vex seems uninterested in continuing the conversation, though, and turns into the trees with a, “you coming, Percy?” tossed over her shoulder. 

  Percy looks at Keyleth for a still moment, before smiling. “Good luck,” he tells her, and makes an abrupt turn to follow Vex. (For someone with so many ideas about everything, Keyleth thinks Percy’s still alright. He’s an okay guy. Probably.)

  The two go walking out of the clearing, Percy’s strange weapon glinting on his back, as the forest swallows them up. 

  “Huh, check that out,” offers Scanlan, gazing at the spot where the two vanished. “No footprints.”

  And Keyleth is abruptly very glad for his unspoken question, because she has an answer for this one. “She told me last night that forests are sort of her domain, her area. Vex, I mean. I guess I don’t know who else I could’ve meant. Anyway,” Keyleth asks, entirely more relaxed than she was a moment ago, “you ready?”

  Scanlan gives a dramatic bow, sweeping his hat down before straightening and offering her his hand with a grin. “You mind taking care of this one? I work best with doorways, and we’re a little ways away from that kind of stage.”

  Keyleth smiles with an affirmative nod, and takes his hand.

  A tree blooms open in front of them, bark curling back like petals, and the last two people in the forest clearing step out into mid-morning desert heat. 

  The sky grows darker above the empty trees, and the air chills further. A soft sigh of wind whistles through the empty clearing, making the shrubs and the leaves shiver. 

\---

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Stringbean, Monstah, and Phillip take Vasselheim by storm.  
> Later: Vex'ahlia and Percival talk terms with something abys(s)mal.  
> Then: The Meat Man takes to the streets while Keyleth Winter-Killer speaks with a brass dragon.  
> Thanks for reading! Title for this part comes from Place to Be by Nick Drake, chapter title is from Man In A Shed, also by Nick Drake. (Yeah I like his music a lot.)  
> Let me know what you think, I seriously treasure every comment. Thanks again!


	2. hearing no bell from a steeple tall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's really hard, when you expect something to catch you and it doesn't.

  The three of them must make an interesting sight as they tumble out of nowhere, breathless, into a side alley in the Quadroads. If anyone was watching, it could be comical; a gnome in plate armor hauling a half-elf to his feet while a goliath chuckles on the ground next to them. Pike smiles at Vax as the shadows quickly slide away from her, and Grog slaps him on the back.

  “Nice one, Vax,” he offers indulgently, “but work on the recovery time.”

  Vax’ildan, who carries a kind and necessary purpose past the understanding of most mortal men, puffs up indignantly. Grog thinks he’s like a bird, maybe, or a little cat, trying to look bigger and angrier than he really is.

  “I’m not usually carrying other people,” he huffs, “and you’re not the easiest to move, big guy.”

  (He means it on a scale of size, as Grog sort of  _ looms  _ over the rest of them, but there’s something else to it. Grog is... rooted isn’t the right word, because the shadows were able to pluck him from the ground easily enough, but he’s not easy to move the way Vax is. And he’s solid in a way Vax isn’t - he wonders if Grog ever struggles with  _ his  _ outline, but that’s doubtful. Steady, maybe, or defined might be the right word.)

  “What about me, Stringbean?” Pike asks playfully, teasing, testing if this is a boundary she can cross. Are nicknames something they can do together, she and Vax and the others?

  “You,  _ Pickle,  _ were an exemplary passenger,” Vax answers, surprised enough by her joking to relax. He forgets to be tense, in that moment, and once the tension is gone it’s difficult to remember why he was so prickly in the first place. ( _ Vex isn’t here,  _ his thoughts pipe up, but she has a piece of him and it’ll have to be enough for now. A private corner of his mind is still caught on the moment they first moved through the shadows, the way they released Pike so quickly, like they knew she’d slough them off herself if they weren’t quick enough. It’s so strange, that moment, and he isn’t sure if the shadows shifted like that because it’s Pike or because it’s not Vex, who’s hair they cling to.)

  Grog rolls his eyes. “If we’re doing the nickname thing, call me Phillip. That’s what everybody here calls me already.”

  The three of them share a moment in this warm back alley, with the unavoidable smell of a city wafting in, that could be called a tentative agreement - but there’s nothing tentative about Grog, who is so very sure. (Vax’s mind breathes a soft  _ what the fuuuuuuck have I gotten myself into  _ as he nods. Pike smiles like the rising sun. Grog waits a moment, holding still for it.)

  It clicks into place between them, like a tether, this bond that Vax doesn’t understand. It’s not Vex, not his twin but - he is very sure that he would kill for these people, that they would kill for him. (Vax rarely considers fate in the formal sense, doesn’t really place a lot of value in the idea that some people find each other in every lifetime, but this must be that. It has to be fate, this swell of trust and certainty, this total lack of doubt.)

  Pike feels it too, Vax humming along with Grog in her mind, unsettled but rapidly calming down. (The first time this happened, with Grog, she’d inhaled a sharp breath and smelled blood and ashes, feeling that heavy weight of loyalty settle in her self. Her hands ached then and they ache now, the old ache from digging temples up, from shifting cornerstones, from battle and  _ oh, okay then. _ )

  Grog scoffs, because his best friend and the new guy are being complete idiots. They’re all gonna go into some big battle by the end of this, and they thought they  _ wouldn’t  _ click? With Grog there, they thought they might not get it together? These two’ve been thinking on grand scales for too long. Grog knows this feeling, knows it in back alley fights and revolutions alike. They’re comrades-in-arms now, duh.

  “Okay, okay, so we all have places to go, right? Meet back here, or...” Pike trails off, a split-second of uncertainty before she squares her shoulders. “We’ll meet back up in this District of the city, anyway.”

  “Yeah, for sure,” says Grog with a pointed glance in Vax’s direction. He’s reeling a little, Vax is, but Grog prods him with a look.

  “Of course, Pickle.” And the nickname makes Pike smile, which was the goal of it anyway, with the added bonus of a smile crossing his own face.

  So the three of them separate, impossibly holy things in the middle of a city of worship, and they take in Vasselheim as they walk. The city is tense with fear - Grog nods at a tavernkeep adjusting their sign and the answering smile is smaller than it usually is, lacking any boisterous cheer. Pike watches people cluster along the street, sees them glance at the sky in hope whenever a the sun comes out from behind the clouds, desperate for signs. Vax steps through the shadows and sees a city on the edge of panic, sweating under an unseasonable heat wave, nervous and jerky. 

  Vasselheim is a city on the brink of disaster, an institution unprepared for silent gods.

\---

  Pike walks the familiar path of packed dirt towards the Temple of Sarenrae and considers, with as much clarity as she can muster, the problem the world is facing. Vasselheim seethes with heat around her, and a couple times during her walk she sees - she thinks she sees a curl of heat, yellow-red and warping in the air - but a heat wave isn’t the great concern. It just makes tempers shorter, an accelerant poured on arguments and insults, but not the spark that sets this mess of fear and desperation ablaze. That’ll be the gods, that have to do that, or the lack of them.

  (The small part of her shrinks away from it, cries out against the reality - “The gods are silent,” Scanlan had growled, and he was  _ right  _ and it wasn’t  _ fair. _ )

  Pike has never struggled with her nature. No, that isn’t quite right. Pike has never struggled with her faith - no, that isn’t right either. Pike has struggled but she has been so  _ sure  _ lately, so certain of her choices. Now, looking at the stone walls of the temple she helped raise, she shudders.

  Pike allows herself a moment to listen to the small voice that wants nothing more than to curl into a ball, a moment to shake, and one singular moment to doubt. The moment passes. 

  (“All pain passes, my Pike,” Wilhand teaches as he bandages her scraped knee. “Sometimes you have to help it move along. Give it a shove, that’s it!”)

  Pike squares her shoulders and steps inside and...

  It’s all wrong here, she knows, and the air is cooler thanks to the walls but not quite cool enough. It’s a heavy atmosphere, that she walks into, and she wishes that she’d taken Grog with her to lighten it. The few followers of Sarenrae are going about their daily tasks, but the place feels dead. She greets them, these good people, and tries so  _ fucking  _ hard to be comforting, to ignore the worst of the questions they ask.

  “Yes, I am going to pray. Yes, I’m going to try. I hope it helps. Yes. We need to keep life as normal as possible. I know She hasn’t abandoned us, yes.”

  Pike makes her excuses as quickly as she can, because she can’t answer the important questions until she gets some answers herself. She climbs the stairs to the base of the Everlight’s statue, armor clanking every step, and prays.

_ Please. Please, I’m here, I’m listening, please. _

  She sinks into it, listening and  **_Listening_ ** _ , _ letting the rhythm of her heartbeat guide her into a deeper state of meditation. All the while, she reaches out for Sarenrae’s hand, calling into the darkness.  _ Please. _

\---

  Sometimes, Grog wonders how he gets into situations like this. Not fights, he always knows how those have started, but situations involving high-ranking political or religious figures who don’t like him much, that he needs things from. Fuckin’ Platinum Sanctuary, fuckin’ stick-up-his-ass Highbearer Vord. (The stick thing makes sense right now, because it’s about fear and control, so Grog won’t push it too much. Normally, it’s just because Vord’s an asshole.) 

  So Vord has that pinched look on his face as he blusters on about how Phillip shouldn’t doubt the efforts of the Platinum Sanctuary to solve this crisis, not after all they’ve done for him personally during “all that business with the sword” and honestly Grog stopped listening about three minutes ago in favor of watching the way the Highbearer’s moving. 

  Vord’s pretty old, yeah, but he doesn’t ever doubt his body. He’s a man of power and influence, and normally that’s reflected in his stance. Now there’s too much anger, helpless anger, moving through the old elf. (“A waste of energy,” he can already hear Earthbreaker Groon saying in his ear. “Vord is wasting it in his worry.”) It’s making him bluster, to cover his doubt. And Grog gets it, Vord needs to be his usual asshole self or the rest of the Sanctuary’ll panic more than they already are. Highbearer Vord is hanging on to the edge of order and control with a deathgrip and he has no real idea what’s happened and he’s staring at Grog now because he asked a question at the end of that section of the lecture.

  Grog straightens to his full height and says, “So, you don’t know what happened and you don’t know how to fix it.”

  The Highbearer flushes with anger and inhales, but Grog keeps talking. “You’re all fuckin’ scared, because you think you did something to piss Bahamut off and that’s scary, yeah. But-”

  Highbearer Vord tries again to interject, but Grog knows the difference between speaking loudly and speaking to be  _ heard,  _ and continues, “You’re too focused on being scared, and it’s making you useless.”

  It’s really not a surprise that Vord kicked him out, after that. He’s making his way down the long staircase leading away from the temple behind him, just starting to sweat from the heat, when he hears a scuffle from the direction of the large doors, some cursing with a nice “fuck off, Udire, go polish your sword or something,” thrown in, but he keeps walking.

  “Phillip, hey! Wait up, man, Phil- oh, fuck it.  _ Grog!” _

  (The air hums. His next step shakes the ground. Kima of Vord moves faster than she should be able to, because she’s right behind him now.)

  Kima punches him on the arm, and yeah, it hurts. She doesn’t pull ‘em.

  “Kima,” he acknowledges.

  (She’s radiant, Lady Kima of Vord, blazing with bright purpose and the ability to kick anyone’s ass. There’s an old camaraderie between them, like this new thing with Vax and not like it at all, and Grog was being selfish, when he didn’t look for her at the Platinum Sanctuary. He hadn’t wanted to watch her be afraid - Kima should never be two things and they are: one, in a dress and two, afraid. But she doesn’t look scared, he notes, despite the desperate spark in her eyes. Kima looks...)

  “You were right, you know, they’re all scared shitless. Highbearer Vord included,” Kima says, kicking a rock. It tumbles down the stairs. 

  “And you?” Grog uses his best neutral face, holding steady, he knows that this conversation could break badly, “What say you, Kima?”

  “Me? They’re wasting their time freaking out,  _ Phillip, _ and there’s no more time for that. The city’s been freaking out for too long already. People need to get angry and I, my friend, am  _ pissed the hell off.” _

  Grog grins at that. “I might need some help, if you’re still good for a fight. Whatever’s doing this, we gotta kill it.”

  They clasp arms in a warrior’s greeting, and Lady Kima of Vord grins with bright rage in her teeth.

\---

  Vax sees the Raven’s Crest long before he reaches it; the obsidian cuts the hazy sky and perches over the rest of the Duskmeadow District. He’s used to being scared and uncertain, on this walk to the temple, used to worrying about what he’ll find there. It’s worse, now, because he’s just really been getting used to Her recently, and the absence. The absence of Her, the fact of an empty temple, it’s unthinkable. She wouldn’t abandon him, he’s certain. The wings still work, and he knows he hasn’t changed suddenly.

  He sees the ravens hopping from tree to tree along his path and doesn’t think much of it, at first. They’re Her messengers, sometimes, carrying omens or words. The ravens aren’t normal birds, so they don’t act normally. Gods, but it’s hot out, and he’s distracted for a second by a snap of red-yellow twisting in the air, likely the sun in his eyes.

  When the flood of ravens descends on him, all Vax can do is brace himself. They surround him, screeching over each other, twisting like a whirlpool. He can’t see, can’t hear beyond the cawing cries and feathers beating the air.  _ Where,  _ they cry wordlessly,  _ where! _ The rest of the sounds have no meaning, none of their usual predictions.  _ Where,  _ seethes the cacophony of ravens.

  It’s entirely disorienting for a long moment, and he waits to feel claws and beaks tearing at him, for his neck, going for his eyes - but they don’t.

  So Vax continues his strategy of holding very still, and the swarm begins to calm.  _ Where, _ they croak sadly. One lands on his shoulder and starts grooming his hair, crooning in its rough bird voice.

  “I don’t know.” Vax’s voice is shaky and rough, too, he realizes. “I don’t know where She is.”

  A mournful hum rises from the ravens, croaking and squawking still, but calmer. More quietly.  _ Where. Gone? _

  “No, She wouldn’t abandon us. Not if there was a choice.”

  The raven grooming his hair croaks gently in his ear, in agreement, Vax thinks.

  “That’s why I’m here,” he tells the birds, “to figure out what happened.”

  The ravens stir, agitated.  _ Go, go. _

  So he walks again, and the birds darken the trees around him, one remaining on his shoulder. The weight of the bird is comforting. It flies back to a tree as he reaches the doors to the Raven’s Crest. Vax’ildan moves forward in the quiet temple, and a priestess steps up to his side. She meets his gaze through her veil, and her gaze is gentle in spite of the tension in her spine.

  “How long, how long have they been like that?” he asks uneasily, and she looks sad.

  “Ever since the gods stopped speaking. We try to care for them, but they’re lost without Her.” ( _ They’re not the only ones,  _ Vax notes, hearing the clear worry in the woman’s voice.)

  “I’m going to try to reach Her,” Vax murmurs as they step into the room of stained glass. He gazes at the pool, placid and still.

  Vax’ildan unclasps his cloak, setting it tenderly to the side. And he steps into the pool of ice-cold blood.

\---

  Pike’s breathing is steady and practiced as she drifts, aiming for that focused place of peace within herself where she can most clearly hear Sarenrae’s words. The Everlight doesn’t always speak in the traditional sense, for Pike, but in this state she can usually get a few clear lines of language.

  (When Sarenrae speaks to her it is the chiming of bells. The first time it happened Pike couldn’t hear for a day afterwards - and she thought of nothing but the low brass hum still working its way through her ribcage. When it passed, Wilhand held her as tightly as he dared, soothing. As the years passed, Pike changed and the bells did too; the huge low sound shifted to soft tinkling chimes, and once in a while, alarm bells. The presence of Sarenrae in her life is something that has echoed in her ears for a very long time.)

  Now, kneeling in her armor, Pike hears nothing. No bells, no words - she opens herself to the presence of the Everlight and feels no warmth at all. Brow furrowing, she goes deeper within herself. Pike steps outside of her body, pulls her own spirit to a cavernous room with shining glass walls that should have light streaming in. She looks for the form of Sarenrae, tall as a mountain, **_Listens_** with straining ears, and is utterly alone. The careful rhythm of her breathing catches, stutters, and the silence presses down on her like a physical thing. Pike chokes, slamming back into her body, keeling over sideways before someone catches her.

  “Easy, P, come on, you’re okay. You’re fine.” But she isn’t fine, because the silence was so heavy and now she has no answers for the others and no answers for herself and it was  _ so quiet.  _ Pike distantly registers that she’s shaking, gasping like a drowning woman, but the temple feels so very far away. Her mind is buzzing with the lack of presence, of sound.

  “Okay, shit, okay. We’re gonna sit here a minute, P, so just breathe. Slower, c’mon, I know you can.”

  Time passes, and sound starts to filter back into Pike. She hears the soft sound of the stairs being swept, her own breathing, and the breathing of the man sitting next to her on the floor. When she comes out of it, surfaces fully from that awful silence, the mismatched gaze of Kashaw Vesh is boring into the side of her head.

  “Hey, Kash,” Pike offers in a shaky voice, “thanks.”

  He shifts a little where he’s sitting, legs crossed, uncomfortable with gratitude as always. Kashaw clears his throat and says, “Yeah, sure. Don’t spread it around, okay? I don’t want people expecting me to be nice all of a sudden. Anyway, hey,” and there’s Kash’s frustration, bleeding through his words, “do you know what the hell is happening? Because everything’s going pretty bad, here.”

  Pike stands, a little unsteady. Her holy symbol feels cold and heavy. She frowns, still trying to shake the cold and silence from her bones, and offers Kash her hand. “Walk and talk?”

  He gets up and follows her out of the grave-quiet temple, sees a little bit of hope die in the people watching Pike walk out. People are always expecting her to have the answers.

  Outside the temple, slowly walking back towards the Quadroads, Pike tells him everything. She finishes the story and looks at him, waiting for a response.

  Kashaw sighs, scratches the back of his head for a moment and says, “Shit, P, I know they have to come back, but I’m not gonna say that I haven’t enjoyed the peace for once. I know that we have to get them back, okay? I just  _ really  _ don’t want to.”

  “You’re a good person, Kash,” Pike reminds him when a familiar haunted expression crosses his face. “You’re not like her, you’re better.”

  Kashaw gives a bitter smile and says, “Yeah, try telling my wife that. Still, let me know what I can do.”

\---

  The Trial Forge is important to Grog, the training and rivalries resonate with the  _ other  _ parts of him, and the Bastions at the door nod as he steps inside. They probably think Phillip’s here for training or looking to fight Kern again, chasing that rush that comes with having a rival. (Things are tense here, but not as much as the Platinum Sanctuary. They are... less reliant on Kord, more reliant on their own bodies.)

  He finds the Earthbreaker meditating, bows, and sits across from the man in the sand pit. Grog waits respectfully for Groon to surface from his meditation. It’s not like the man hasn’t noticed Grog’s approach, anyway. It’s warm in the Trial Forge, which isn’t that weird, but something’s  _ off.  _ Something’s shady.

  Earthbreaker Groon opens his eyes and considers the goliath before him. “It is good to see you in these dark times, my friend,” he says in his deliberate voice. 

  Grog nods and replies, “You too, Earthbreaker. I have questions.”

  “I thought you would,” Groon says, “I won’t waste time with chatter, then. We do not know why Kord is silent, though we continue to train. I have the beginning of a theory, but the information is not actionable. I’m not sure how it would begin to work.”

_ Finally. _ “What’s the theory?” Grog asks, still calm, still respectful. Earthbreaker Groon earned his respect long ago, and he’s way less of an asshole compared to Highbearer Vord.

  “It is not unheard of, my friend, to lock away things that cannot be easily overcome,” Groon’s voice wastes no energy with worry, as it floats through the room, even as he speaks the impossible. It’d have to be something really strong, to do that.

  Grog pictures the great doors of the Trial Forge slamming shut, cutting off the people outside. The giant statue remains on top of the temple for people to see, but if they can’t get through the door, there’s no point to it.  _ Okay. _

  “Okay,” says Grog, getting to his feet with another bow. “Thanks for the help.” And he turns to walk out of the temple.

  “My friend,” the Earthbreaker calls, “mind this heat. There’s something dark in it.”

  Grog makes his way back to the Quadroads, watching the little warps in the air. He thinks they might be getting bigger, shinier, and it’s so hot in Vasselheim.

\---

  Vax’ildan sinks, and he is so cold. The blood fills his nose and mouth, choking him with the heavy iron taste. He sinks to the bottom of the pool, vision dark and empty of everything but the red. His lungs burn and he feels - 

  (The ravens rise from the trees, screeching and circling the temple, perching on it. There is no meaning in the mess of shrieks and cries, but it is loud and tumbles across the sky. The general revelry of the Duskmeadow District, increased in such a tense time, stops. People glance upward, entranced by the cloud of birds and the racket they produce. Within the temple, the residents of Raven’s Crest stare at the still surface of the communion pool.)

  Vax’ildan’s lungs burn and he feels absolutely nothing. Panic begins to set in, as he starts thrashing in the thick liquid, too deep in it to find the edge. He feels himself losing his outline, blood rushing to mingle with the shadowed edge of him and he  **_moves._ **

  Vax comes back to himself slowly,curled in his cloak like it can protect him as he coughs blood out onto the floor. The priestess rubs his back in slow circles, quietly soothing him. They both pretend the tears in his eyes are from the coughing. She doesn’t ask, but the truth rips from him like a sob; “Nothing!” He continues to shudder, cold down in his bones, “I saw nothing.” He drowned, and the warmth didn’t come.

  Vax gazes at the pool in the center of the room and knows that is is just a pool of blood; there is no goddess here. That’s pretty fucked up, when he thinks about it. He shakes off the concern of the priestess, scrubbing off his face and moving to the door.

  He staggers out into the heat of Vasselheim and sits on the steps of the temple. The ravens croak mournfully above him. It takes a very long time for the shivering to stop. A shadow moves in front of him and he squints at it, uncertain.

  Standing in front of him, Zahra Hydris clicks her tongue and kneels down to his level. “Oh Vax, what’ve they done to you,” she says in her low, musical voice. “Let me help. After all,” she smiles gently, eyes still sharp with concern, “We can’t have your sister thinking that you can’t look after yourself.”

_ Vex already thinks that,  _ he doesn’t say, as Zahra’s magic flickers over him and the blood flakes away in the face of it. Instead, Vax croaks, “Thanks.” He hopes she doesn’t notice how dead his voice sounds. Zahra is sharp, he knows, she’ll pick up on it, but she’s kind. It’ll just make her unhappy to see him so wrecked. So he hopes, because praying’s useless right now. 

  They sit for a while, quiet except for the sound of the birds around them. Zahra watches him, sees the moment where Vax decides to walk away. She sets a hand on his shoulder, gently, and says, “Whatever has happened, it’s a terrible thing. Let me help you, Vax’ildan.”

  (The ravens go silent for a moment. In the temple, a ripple crosses the pool of blood. His cloak shifts on his shoulders, fuzzing his back until he’s half shadow. Zahra does not flinch away.)

  “I don’t know,” he starts, stops, hesitates. “I don’t know what to do. I need to meet back with the others, others like me. Maybe they have something.”

  “I can go with you,” Zahra offers, but he shakes his head.

  “Can you, maybe, start researching? Something that could block gods.” Vax almost stutters over the last sentence, the cold in his bones returning for a moment. “Not some great sin, because these people haven’t done anything wrong. But something that could keep a god in a cage.”

  On the last word, Zahra’s face hardens with determination. “Of course, dear. We’ll make them free,” she says in a reassuringly brisk voice, “I’m not going to leave anyone in a cage.”

  Vax nods, and walks away.

  “Say hi to your sister for me,” Zahra calls to his back.

  And for the first time in a while, as he turns to move back through the sweltering, tense city, Vax’ildan smiles. (Still, despite the heat, he shivers.)

\---

  They reconvene in the Quadroads, finding each other outside a shop Grog knows. He nods at the potions merchant through the window, but the man’s bent over his ledgers and doesn’t look up. Grog takes one look at the others’ faces - the way Pike’s tense as a brittle sword, the way Vax shivers in the sun - and thinks,  _ We’re not gonna do this here. _

  “We’re not doing this here,” he says, and Pike starts a little. Grog rarely makes proclamations like that, so it’s probably important. (The small, scared part of her is loud; she is eager for something else to listen to.) Vax makes no move to argue. (Zahra got him cleaned up, but he still tastes the blood in his throat. Has it always felt this lonely?)

  (Grog’s glad that they don’t have any opinions on it, because  _ yeah,  _ they both need a seat and an ale right now. Grog can  **_feel_ ** it, knows that they need time to adjust to everything. And he’ll get them that time, no matter who he has to fight for it. They weren’t ready, Pike and Vax, for Vasselheim. Grog gets that now. They’re two people shut out of the temple, staring up at statues and being afraid and yeah, that’s not gonna work. Kima was right; there’s no time to be scared. It’s time to get  _ angry. _ )

  So he guides them as gently as he can, Pike on his shoulders and a hand on Vax’s back, into a familiar tavern. The barkeep sends ale to their table, and Grog gives her a nod. Phillip having fans always comes in handy. Pike takes a good sip, glancing around the room as the knots in her muscles slowly unravel. Vax just stares at his mug.

  Grog gets tired of watching him shiver in what he’s sure  _ Vax  _ thinks is an unnoticeable way. “You gonna drink it, or what.”

  Vax startles at the prompt, but catches the glint of a challenge in Grog’s eyes. He takes a swallow that’s too large, and coughs a little following it. Grog, thoughtful person that he is, gives a good whack to his back.

  “Thanks, big man,” Vax wheezes, but there’s some life back in his face. 

  Grog snorts. “My strength comes from my friends. It’d suck to let one die to a mug of ale.” They both stew in that for a little bit. 

  A sound breaks through the quiet, and they both turn to look at Pike’s laughing face. “You guys are  _ adorable, _ ” she teases. Grog pipes up with an overly-affronted reply, and Vax grins along with the conversation. The three of them continue to speak of nothing at all for the next ten minutes. 

  (Tension in Pike’s limbs vanishes. Vax’s shaking finally abates. Grog is entirely satisfied with how this plan worked out - the  _ other  _ part of him hums along in agreement.)

  Eventually, Pike clears her throat and brings them around from their joking. “So,” she offers, “I got nothing. I met a friend, and he  _ also  _ didn’t have anything. He’s a very good person! Just didn’t have any insight on,” she wiggles her hand in a vague gesture, “all this.”

  “Yeah,” drawls Vax, “I didn’t find  _ shit.  _ Got someone to start researching, but who the fuck knows if that’ll be anything.”

_ Wow,  _ Grog thinks,  _ these guys are totally useless without me right now. _

  “Wow,” Grog says, “luckily  _ I  _ got us a lead.” And he tells them about what Groon said, about locking stuff up. He waves the Platinum Sanctuary off, since they’re probably too scared to get their armor dirty right now anyway, but Kima gets a mention in his story.

  It’s very warm in the bar, warmer than earlier, though it’s past midday now. 

  “Oh yeah,” Grog finishes, “Earthbreaker also said there was something weird with this heat. Dunno what it is, but I figure we should keep our eyes open.”

  Vax’ildan makes a frustrated sound. “Maybe this was stupid, but I really thought,  _ I really thought  _ we’d just come here and break a curse or something and it would work out easy,” he admits. 

  “Yeah, that was stupid.”

  “ _ Thank you,  _ Grog. Hey,” Pike says, turning to Vax with a take-no-shit voice, “we have to get off the airship of wallowing now. We have an idea, which is more than we had before. Besides, Kima was right. It’s time to get mad. We’ll bring this back to the others and go from there.”

  “Pickle, I’ve known you for two days, and I can’t imagine you getting really angry.”

  Grog throws back his head and howls with laughter. Pike smiles tolerantly, but her eyes are hard and glint in the afternoon light. He doesn’t quite know her yet.

  “Can’t imagine, he can’t imagine - this is too fuckin’ good. Let me tell you, Vax, if there’s anyone in this room who can go full monstah, it’s Pike.”

  (The barkeep’s headache vanishes. Two streets away, a man lifts a horse cart. Farther still, a gavel strikes on a just ruling.)

  “Right,” says Pike with that faint smile still lingering. “So we look into this idea with the others, and we keep an eye on the heat. The light component is weird, right? Like little cracks in the air.”

  “Yeah, weird.”   
  “I’ve never seen it, either.”

\---

  Miles away, Headmaster Cerkonos watches the portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire and hopes he is mistaken. (He knows that he is not.)

  He feels it, even as the distance is too small to see - in milimeters, slowly, the portal grows wider.

\---

  Farther still, in a cave tucked into the side of Gatshadow Mountain, a figure in a dark robe rants at a twisting curl of smoke. The dark green-gray cloud seems to sigh, bored of waiting and listening to fools plan. All robes got so  _ boring  _ after a while; they all end up the same. This time, though, the tiresome man promises  _ soon _ .

  A pleased growl rumbles through the cave, an echo of what she might be, what she can be. The smoke has no form, takes no figure that she does not choose, she might be  _ anything  _ \- but for now she settles into the human-shape, leaning against the cave wall. Her bright yellow eyes track the wizard, waiting for the moment to come. It will feel so  _ good  _ to discard him when his usefulness has run out.

  Torchlight in the cave glints off of vials, bounces from spell components and mirrors, gleams in the teeth of Raishan’s dragon-smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Lord Percival of Whitestone and Lady Vex of Somewhere or Other share words with a devil prince.  
> Then: Scanlan conducts a tuneless song and Keyleth has an insightful conversation.  
> These chapters are still more about looking at the characters (this turned out to have less plot than I really wanted) but I think it’s still enjoyable setup to read. Vasselheim was sort of Sad Time for Vax and Pike, but the gears of the world are turning all around our heroes right now. Plus, I think Grog's the kind of friend who can lift you back up.  
> (I was serious, by the way, with that tag that says I’m only really making nods to canon. Raishan might not straight-up be a diseased green dragon in this, but I still hope to do her some justice. My all-time favorite villain right there.)  
> Thanks a bunch for reading! Chapter title is from Parasite, a song once again by Nick Drake.  
> Let me know what you think!


	3. a soul with no footprint

Percy watches Vex’ahlia as they walk through the forest, waiting for her to do... well, something like what her brother did. He’s wary of surprises and puzzles, ahd Vex’ahlia is clearly both. To be fair, anyone else  _ like him _ came as a surprise. He’ll understand her soon enough - Percy is nothing if not intelligent, after all - but it’s a bit early in their acquaintance to go asking personal questions. (He doesn’t want her asking him any in return.)

  So distracted is Percy with this puzzle, he doesn’t notice the root until he’s already tripping over it in an entirely undignified fashion. He’s falling forward, going to run straight into Vex’ahlia’s back, when something snags the back of his coat and hauls him into a standing position. Percy stands very still as a  _ whuff  _ ruffles his short hair. Vex’ahlia turns, looking behind him. A smile grows on her face, as delighted as he’s ever seen her. Morning sunlight seems brighter as it filters through the trees, the very air becomes easier to breathe. 

  “Trinket? Is that you, darling?” she calls, and the bear behind him gives another  _ whuff.  _ A mass of brown fur makes a beeline for Vex’ahlia, who reaches out to gleefully pet him.

  (Trinket settles beside his Vex, a well of strength and wildness. Yep. It’s his Vex.)

  Percy adjusts his glasses, clearing his throat to catch the attention of an enraptured Vex’ahlia. “Ah. So, the bear - he’s yours?”

  As he speaks, the joy in her face goes fixed, pulls a little at the edges. Her grin vanishes, replaced by a diplomat’s bland show of teeth. That’s fine, Percy can do those smiles too. Her hand tightens in Trinket’s fur almost imperceptibly. 

  “ **Yes** ,” spills from her mouth, echoing from tree to tree, weaving through the wind like a warning. Her eyes are solid and deep and he cannot quite tell what color they are. There’s a tense moment where his fingers twitch toward his pistol.

  Trinket shifts his bulk, leaning into Vex’ahlia’s side, and she blinks hard. “Sorry about that, dear, you just surprised me. Trinket’s a - he’s a sensitive subject. Yes, though, he’s mine.”

  The clearing around him sighs, tension vanishing. Percy rolls back his shoulders and puts on what he hopes is an easy smile. 

  “Perfectly alright, happens to all of us from time to time,” he says. (But he won’t forget this moment, with his unintentional intrusion and the barely restrained power of the entire forest around him, holding in a breath. For a moment it felt like Whitestone, like he was standing in someone else’s Whitestone.)

  The tenseness passes away on the breeze, sunlight filtering through the leaves in gentle patterns. They’re both a little off balance, but she rallies quickly.

  “We should keep moving,” says the strange Vex’ahlia, glancing skyward. “Time’s wasting.”

  Percy nods, and they set off again at a brisk walk, now accompanied by a bear. They’re hundreds of miles from Emon, it will takes weeks to get there. He’s not sure why she hasn’t pulled them into some shadow or other. He inhales to ask, and -

  In the time it’s taken for Percy to blink, the light is weaker in the sky. He looks up alarmed, as the sky changes to twilight-purple, as the sun peels backward, moving east instead of west. The trees change and shift around him, one moment familiar enough and the next completely new. The air chirps with strange birdcalls. For a moment he’s entirely disoriented, and Vex’ahlia and Trinket are the only thing he recognizes in the muddle of forest around him. 

  She watches him jerk to a stop, reads the uncertainty. 

  “Come on,” Vex’ahlia instructs, extending a hand, “It’s best to keep walking.” So he reaches out, dazed as she grips his wrist and **_pulls_** him the rest of the way with her. The treeline stops ahead of them.

  As soon as they break it, coming to the view of a road, she releases him. “We can’t stop in the middle,” she explains in a surprisingly gentle tone, “you might get lost that way.”

  The sun is once again near the horizon, as Vex’ahlia turns to walk up the road. In the distance, the walls of Emon rise up out of the land. Percy realizes that his hands are shaking, fine tremors.

  (Vex slows a moment at the edge of the trees. The forest is so very  _ present,  _ like a hand on her shoulder, like a crooning voice in her ear. Trinket growls low, nearly inaudible over the rustling branches, but it’s enough for her. Trinket is so very good at calling Vex back to herself. When her feet hit the packed dirt road, the murmuring feeling stops.

  She hopes Percival didn’t notice.)

\---

  Emon is the Sovereign’s city, or so the saying goes. Vasselheim is a city for the gods but Emon is for more earthly rulers. Vex does not fit comfortably in either place. (She does just fine, she knows, and she  _ tries.  _ It just never quite clicks into place. None of the cities she’s been to fit properly around her shoulders.)

   She lets Percival take the lead in talking to the gate guards, casually noting down the lies about who they are so she won’t be caught out. They’re to be nobility; how useful. A few strangers barging into the city would hardly be able to go to the Cloudtop, let alone the palace itself. (If she were alone, Vex could get in. If she was ready to share more of herself, she could get them both in. But she met Percival  _ yesterday,  _ he hasn’t earned every piece of her past yet.) The story is quickly accepted, and one guard offers to guide them through the city. Percival looks like he’s going to accept. 

  Vex clears her throat and cuts in, “We can make our own way, thank you. I do  _ love  _ seeing new places.” Her eyes are sharp as she takes the guard in, watches the tense line of his face. “Unless there’s something wrong in your city?”

  The guard shifts, scratches the back of his neck. “Nothing wrong exactly, Lady, just strange times. Everything’s a little on edge. You’re sure you don’t want an escort to your destination? It’ll make it faster when you show your invitation to the palace, I’ve heard everything’s been moving slow the last couple days.”

  Vex laughs in a way she knows is dazzling, and replies, “I’ve got an escort right here, but thank you. Good to see decent people helping others out in these  _ strange times.” _

  Once they’re past the guards, a little way into Emon, Vex turns to Percival. “How did you explain Trinket to them? He’s a bear.”

  Trinket lets out a questioning  _ awoor? _

  Percival gives her what she thinks is his first genuine smile since this whole adventure began. “We’re nobility. Eccentricity is expected.”

  She nods, and the three of them continue walking. A white-haired man, a half-elf, and a bear walk into a bar. She can imagine the joke now. “We could stand to make a stop along the way, if you don’t mind. A friend of mine lives in the city, and he’s rather magical. Might have some kind of idea.”   
  Percival makes an agreeable hum. So, a white-haired man, a half-elf, and a bear walk into Gilmore’s Glorious Goods. She can’t wait for the look on his face.

\---

  The purple sign outside the shop is emblazoned with a unicorn and grandiose lettering. The sheer charisma radiating from the storefront makes Percy rock back on his heels, turning a questioning gaze on Vex’ahlia. “How well do you know this person, exactly?”

  “Oh, he’s an old friend, we go way back.” she replies, moving to the door. Trinket plods along behind her as delicately as a large bear can, clearly on his best behavior. “Gilmore’s a wonderful person,” she adds as she steps into the shop.

  The store is filled with arcane items, and Percy’s eyes dart across them. It’s like he can see their histories unspooling, tangling in conspiracies before his eyes. Possibility is a great gift of his, and some of these things have so many possibilities. That sword killed a vampire, who killed the wielder’s husband. An adventurer will take that potion before lighting a manor on fire. That dagger was forged on another plane. It’s interesting stuff, truly. The atmosphere within the shop, however, is nervous, shifting. 

  A mousy, half-elven woman in thick spectacles looks up from a heavy book and does a double-take. “Vex’ahlia? What are you doing here?”

  (A lost child finds his mother in the market. In a closed up General’s house in the Cloudtop, the ghost of an iron nightmare growls.)

  “Hello Sherri,” she says lightly, “We’re looking for Gilmore. Is he in?”

  At the question, Sherri flinches. Her hands flutter over the counter, adjust her glasses, press together. “He went to speak with Allura Vysoren in the Cloudtop two days ago. There’s been some kind of trouble at the palace. He hasn’t been back.”

  Vex’ahlia’s bow is in her hands. Percy didn’t even see her move. He steps forward, interjecting, “Is this unusual for him?”

  Sherri shakes her head, frowning. “Gilmore will stick around to help a friend if they need it. I wasn’t even concerned the first day. Now, though,” Sherri pauses to clear her throat, “I’m less certain.”

  “Sherri,” Vex’ahlia says in a soothing voice, “Vysoren lives in the Cloudtop District, doesn’t she?” The bow is gone in the space of a blink. Her hands rest on the countertop and Trinket bumps his head against her side.

  “Ah, yes, in the white tower there. Arcanist Vysoren is a member of the Council, after all. She and Gilmore are friends, they connected after the business with General Krieg. He enjoys making friends and having connections, you know.” Sherri still looks very concerned, but less panicked. Her movements slow.

  “Well,” says Vex’ahlia, decisive, “We’ll have to keep a lookout for him. If he comes back before us, let me know.”

  Sherri continues to frown. “Stock of arcane parchment is low right now, so I don’t know how you’d like me to -”

  “No worries, darling. I have something for that.” And Percy watches Vex’ahlia slowly pull an arrow from her bundle, and a breeze blows through the closed shop, smelling of wet leaves and dirt. Her eyes gleam that dark, deep color, and the arrow  **changes** in her grip. She pulls and twists and the arrow in her hands softens, bends. The wood burns away until all that’s left is a curl of gold and heat, twisting in her hands. She bends it like warm wire, twists a crown, a necklace, a bangle, a ring, all shifting like the metal is alive. She looks at Sherri for a long moment, considering - 

  And Vex is passing a simple bangle across the shop counter. “If you need me, darling, I’ll hear you.”

  Percy watches Sherri’s expression ease and soften. Hope passes across the mousy woman’s face, before it’s replaced with a severe expression. Vex made that happen. _ Oh, she is very dangerous.  _

  The three of them - himself, Vex, and Trinket - make their way to the Cloudtop and the shining white stone tower there.

\---

  There is a hunting song singing in Vex’s ears. Her fingers itch to pull out her bow again and she wants so very badly to draw an arrow, to shoot. The  _ other,  _ alien part of her is raging, chaotic as the Gilded Run, seething with fury. Gilmore is in trouble - Sherri wasn’t sure but Vex  _ is  _ -

Her instincts are loud, demanding recompense. Helping Sherri, easing her spirit was a good release valve, but sometimes the  _ other  _ is so loud, and Vex is so sharp. Trinket plods along beside her, ever a grounding presence, helping all he can.

  Percival is watching her, Vex knows. He’s evaluating, calculating. It’s perfectly fair; she’s been doing the same thing to him. Still, that doesn’t mean she has to like it. 

  (It doesn’t help that Emon’s an old hunting ground, that she cannot take a step in this city without catching dragon-scent on the breeze. Guard armor gleams in the morning light and she sees Brimscythe’s scales, dull and iron. She keeps waiting to here Gilmore calling a spell, Vax swearing against the pain. They killed a dragon together, in this city. For this city. The  _ other  _ part of her loves it, hungers for the hunt. Vex is not so sure.)

  Dark things are stirring in the Cloudtop District, the closer they get to the palace. Shadows between rich buildings seem deeper, there’s a faint wrongness to the air. People hurry from place to place, not stopping to talk to each other. Vex has seen Emon like this only once before, when her brother called her to his side so they could fight a dragon of monstrous metal.

  (It would have been enough to get into the Cloudtop at the very least, just being Vex’ahlia Dragonslayer. Seeing what story a person will make up is a good litmus test, though, and she met Percival  _ yesterday.  _ He could use a few litmus tests.)

  They arrive at Vysoren’s tower, and the white marble stands out stark against the darkness. Allura Vysoren is a stranger to Vex; they’ve never had a conversation, only seen each other from a distance. Perhaps if Vex were more tangled in the politics of the city, things would be different. For all she is a Dragonslayer, she isn’t sure any member of the Council would even recognize her. It’s been some time, and the only one she’d had much contact with was General Krieg. Part of that contact had been killing him. 

  Percival is frowning at the tower. He’s very pale, she knows, but as he raises his hand to the stone - she blinks. His skin nearly matches the marble, leached of all color. His eyes glow a deep, solid blue behind his glasses.  Same color of his coat, she notes. He withdraws his hand, a little color coming back to his face. 

  “There’s no one in there,” he says in a certain voice. He’s very sure. 

  “How do you know?” She doesn't really think he’ll answer, but they can’t go on this way, with no trust between them. It has to start somewhere.

  Percival considers for a moment. “I think it’s something like your forests. Stone like this is, well, familiar to me.”

  She accepts the information, adds it to her mental list of Perciva- Percy’s qualities.

  “What do you think we should do, then?” This is not a test. Vex wants to stop testing him, to move forward. 

  “We could go to the palace proper, I suppose. It is our intended destination, after all. And there’s been ‘trouble’ there, too.” A sensible suggestion.

  Vex turns to Trinket. “Dearest,” she begins, and he’s already letting out a sad groan. “I know something’s wrong, Trinket, but you can help me. Stay here,” Vex instructs, “and if Allura Vysoren returns, come to me.”   
  Her bear lets out a questioning  _ awoor? _

  “She has yellow hair, in these big braids. You’ll know - she’ll smell like magic.”

_ Humph. _

  “Thank you, Trinket.”

  So her bear settles outside the tower, sniffing at the air, while she and Percy head to the palace.

\---

  Percy catches Vex up on the cover story as they walk, making sure that their responses will match up in front of the (presumably more alert) palace guards. 

  He’s been to Emon a few times, though he’s never been close to the ruling family. Matters of state can be interesting. They have the potential to be interesting. Some part of them must be interesting. (Percy is remarkably unsuited for the business of day-to-day ruling. He takes things too personally, holds grudges too long and doesn’t care to hide them as well as he ought to. Cassandra’s always made that point very clear.) His time in Emon has been spent in backroom conspiracies, picking out members of the Clasp from Seeker Assum’s people from angry citizens,  **_nudging_ ** things along down their tracks.

  The district grows more uneasy and deserted as they approach the palace. It should be busier. Much busier. 

  The sense that something isn’t right heightens very quickly as they reach the ornate gate to the palace courtyard and find it entirely unguarded. He and Vex exchange a glance, and he pushes the well-oiled iron in with one hand on his pistol.

  The inner courtyard is completely deserted, almost silent. The air is still and tinged with malice. A palace like this one, where the ruler of the continent lives, should be busy with spies and servants at all hours. 

  “I know where the throne room is.” Vex’s low words seem loud within the quiet walls. 

  Percy swallows and nods, watches her prowl forward as he follows, drawing his pistol. The halls of the palace are deserted as well, that unspoken malice hanging in the air. They’re getting closer to the throne room when it hits him - she must feel it too, because Vex’ahlia goes entirely still, alert. Her bow is in her hands.

  The sensation is difficult to explain. There’s a faint scent of sulfur and smoke. His ears ache, like a long scream has just ended. His paranoia kicks into overdrive as the malice in the air around them intensifies.  _ You are being watched,  _ his  _ other  _ whispers,  _ you should be the watching one.  _ Vex’s gaze is darting around the empty hall, searching. They both know something is aware of them, is waiting.

  (Here’s where it all clicks into place, for Percy and Vex. They’re suspicious of each other, sure, but she’s looking one way and he’s looking the other, both scanning for the threat. Entirely willing to kill for each other, all of a sudden. Some soul-deep tether of destiny and battles not yet fought ties them together, impossible to ignore.)

  The vile presence doesn’t abate, but the connection is like a shield. Percy goes from purely paranoid to processing again, with a jolt to his system. “So it’s waiting, and knows we’re here. Five gold says the throne room.”

  Vex begins stalking forward again, bow in hand. He follows her, and she glances back over her shoulder, dark braid shifting against the back of her armor.

  “I don’t make bad bets, Percival.”

  (In Gilmore’s Glorious Goods, a young adventurer buys a potion from a tense Sherri. The mansion will be cinders within a year, its lord left as cinders within it.)

  The two of them reach the grand double doors to the throne room, wood carved elaborately, pressed with gold and jewels. As one, they each grab a door and swing it open. 

  At the far end of the large room, past ornate pillars and tapestries, the being sitting on the throne of Sovereign Uriel Tal’Dorei claps in welcome.

\---

  “Ah,  _ Lord  _ Percy, how very nice to see you,” the smiling devil croons, something possessive in his voice. “And you must be Lady Vex. Or, tell me,” his voice twists into something that could almost be mistaken for considerate, “would you prefer a different title? Dragonslayer, perhaps, would suit.” The devil shifts forward on the throne, blazing eyes trained on her, looking for her secrets.

  “You appear to have us at a disadvantage,” Percy says as they step forward, still in sync. They’re maybe fifteen feet from the devil now, but the silence of the palace is so heavy, shouting across the distance is unnecessary. “We have come to speak with Sovereign Uriel Tal’Dorei. You are most certainly  _ not him.” _

  The devil smiles. “My name is Jurazel. The Sovereign is... indisposed at the moment, but I do so adore good conversation. So please,” and he gestures lazily, and the doors behind them slam shut. “Let’s have a good conversation.”

  Vex’s fingers clench around her bow, twitch toward her arrows. She holds, as Percy takes a step forward - she wants to snare his coat and haul him back - and waits as he starts talking. 

  “Well, Jurazel, I don’t suppose you know anything about this business with the gods?” His voice is steady, is clever and dangerous.

  Jurazel seems to relax back into the throne, clearly comfortable with negotiation, but Vex caught a flicker of uncertainty buried deep in his eyes. Percy caught it too. “If I did,” Jurazel croons, “it would cost you something. Make me an offer, Percy of  _ Whitestone.” _

_ Foolish,  _ Vex thinks, as she watches Percy go from vaguely diplomatic to very dangerous.  _ Poor negotiating. _ She can see his jaw clench, knows he must be grinding his teeth.

  “If you knew anything useful, you’d be teasing me with it.” The strange weapon in Percy’s hand comes up, something unstable about him. “And really, you think I’d make a deal with someone so eager to betray me?”

  “There is a precedent,” Jurazel growls, shifting awfully. The illusion slips away as he stands to nearly twenty feet, pincers rippling into their visions. And Percy’s gunshots  _ crack  _ through the air as Vex’ahlia fires a rapid hail of arrows that slam into the stone floor.

  And where each arrow hits marble, there’s a curl of power from Vex with her deep eyes. The floor  _ cracks  _ and groans and the stone grinds, as thick trees sprout up through it.

\---

  Percy appreciates the new cover as he ducks behind a tree, reloading. He works his way over to where Vex is, both of them moving in tandem. He hears the demon cry out when her arrows find the right spots. It feels  _ right,  _ fighting beside her. It’s going reasonably well, even, which might be why the demon shifts tactics and starts talking again as it crashes through the new forest.

  “I saw you both, you know, testing each other. Would you have killed him in the woods, Vex? Is your control so  _ weak?” _

  Her movements stutter as she dodges between trees, and the side of a pincer  _ slams  _ into her, knocking her breathless against a stone pillar. And  _ that just won’t do, will it. _

  The glabrezu turns his back on Vex, lumbering in Percy’s direction. “What use does your city have for you,  _ Percy?  _ What purpose can you possibly serve now -”

  The speech is cut off by an arrow thudding into his broad shoulder, exploding into thorns. The demon  _ howls,  _ turning to the place Vex had been a second earlier. “ _ You, _ ” he shouts in a guttural voice, “you are  _ nothing!  _ Tell me, Lady, how fares your forest - how have you cured that creeping sickness, Vex of Shade-”

  A bullet catches Jurazel in the throat and he gurgles into silence. A beat later, an arrow slams into each of his eyes. Percy appreciates her thoroughness. 

  The forest around him withers down to nothing, to strange puddles of leaf matter shot through with thin veins of gold. The cracks in the throne room floor, however, are undeniable. As is the giant demon corpse.

\---

  Vex watches the demon fall, mind straining under the pressure of this forest - she is not meant for growing things, she thinks - and she loses the thread of them for a moment. They die, melt, whither,  _ whatever,  _ and she can think properly again. Percy is panting from the exertion of the fight, and her own forehead is damp with sweat. There’s a moment where they just breathe. The malice in the air fades, dead, as the culprit lies dead on the cracked floor.

  “Do you think the Sovereign is alive?” Vex asks, uncertain. There are children, too, Salda and Uriel have two children. She hopes desperately that somehow,  _ somehow  _ they’re all alright.

  Percy looks thoughtful for a moment, before answering, “There’s really only one way to find out.”

  So they begin moving though the eerily quiet palace again, searching for people. It’s possible that the servants and guards and scribes fled, when that malevolence first appeared in the air. Vex is certain that some of them must’ve; anyone with a decent perception would know that things were very wrong. (Unfortunately, she’s also sure that there’s a room somewhere in the palace full of unlucky corpses, that people have traded their souls for vague promises. Gilmore wouldn’t - can’t - if Gilmore has been harmed in all of this, Vex isn’t quite sure what she’ll do, what she’ll turn into, seeking recompense. He’s her  _ friend,  _ one of her rare old friends.)

  Room by room, they work their way through the Sovereign’s seat of power. It’s almost an hour before they find anyone.

  Vex recognizes Allura Vysoren’s hairstyle, really, shining gold over the other woman’s shoulders. The Arcanist is leaning back against the doors of the antechamber that comes before the Council meeting room. She pushes herself up into a fighting stance when they come into view. Allura stands like a statue, stone-strong, and glyphs bloom in her hands threateningly. It’s a show of considerable power, but Vex sees past it, sees the exhaustion in her eyes.

  “Declare yourselves,” Arcanist Allura Vysoren orders, unwavering.

  “This is Percy, I’m Vex. The demon in the throne room is dead.” The  _ other  _ rages in her mind, triumphant from that hunt. Emon is such a  _ good  _ city for hunting in. Vex’s patience is beginning to fray, though, and Allura is standing between her and a place where Gilmore might be.

  Percy steps forward slowly, hands still at his sides, every movement structured to calm. “Why are you here, Arcanist? Do you need assistance?”

  “Vex, who slayed the dragon with Gilmore? If this is some trick, I’ll not bow to it.”

  Percy continues in his low voice, “Yes, that’s her. What are you doing here, Arcanist? Who are you guarding?”

  At that, the spell sparking at Allura’s fingertips fades. She steps to the side, leaning back against the stone wall. “The royal family, of course, and Gilmore. Two lines of defense, we thought, would be better than one. We couldn’t take the castle back, but if we could  _ save  _ them-”

  Vex steps forward quickly, ignoring Allura and Percy’s murmured conversation. Through the door, in the dark interior of the antechamber she sees him - a little less put together than usual, looking like he’s been awake for two straight days but  _ alive  _ \- Shaun Gilmore. The floor is covered in glyphs, gleaming with arcane light, and he looks up.

  Gilmore’s eyes widen in surprise, but a smile grows across his tired face. “My dear Vex’ahlia, fancy running into you at this,” he gestures to the room around him, “party.”

  (Trinket snaps lazily at a strange butterfly that flits past his nose. A fresh wind snaps through the stagnant palace courtyard.)

  “You know me, Gilmore, I can’t resist a good one.”

  And Vex feels lighter and lighter, as Gilmore escorts Uriel and Salda and their children - all unharmed - from the Council rooms. She smiles as she introduces him to Percy, floating, the  _ other  _ humming content in her mind. She’ll have to tell Vax about this; Shaun Gilmore is the kind of man who saves emperors, and everyone should know.

\---

  Later, sitting around a table in Allura’s tower, Percy breathes in the scent of his tea and tries to keep from grinding his teeth. He hadn’t really expected the Sovereign and his advisors to have insight on a divine crisis - it’s not like this is Vasselheim or something - but it would have been useful.

  It hasn’t been a complete waste of time, he supposes, when Vex shoots him a questioning glance. He answers with a wry smile. Someone there to watch his back is hardly useless. And he genuinely likes Vex’ahlia, wants to be her friend, for all that she first unnerved him. Helping a friend of hers was a good outcome, with the added bonus of the ruler of the continent now owing them a favor.

  Percy doesn’t forget a debt, and he’s not the type to forgive them very often.

\---

  Outside of the city, Vex’s eyes drift over the trees as they head back into the forest. Trinket  _ harrumphs  _ along beside her, Percy at her other side.

  She  **_pulls_ ** them all back to the clearing they started in, and something flickers at the edges of her senses, tugs at her  _ other  _ instincts. It feels like a beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Scanlan, Keyleth, and Ank’Harel.  
> Vax had a bit of an easier time getting along with Pike and Grog, mainly because they already had an established dynamic and didn’t need to start from scratch. (And fighting together is kind of Grog’s entire thing, “my strength is from my friends” and all.) Anyway, Vex and Percy learn to work together and go on an adventure! The dragonslaying thing will come back up in the future, but I wanted to introduce it here - Brimscythe was a blue dragon also named the Iron Storm in canon, in this he was a dragon made of literal iron.  
> Thank you so much for reading this, let me know what you think of it! I love comments!


	4. let goodly sin and sunshine in

  Scanlan’s a well-traveled guy at this point, but the tree thing is new. His hands itch for a quill, for a notebook, for something to record the rush of light and life. There’s a poem in there somewhere, a story to be told.  _ How did you figure it out,  _ he wonders,  _ what was the very first time like? Were you young, a girl who tripped into a tree, into a destiny? _

  (Keyleth is... hard isn’t the right word. Enduring, maybe, or unyielding might work. It feels stupid to explain, he’s known her less than a day, but Scanlan’s a listener, a writer, a performer; he can tell that she’s not playing softness. And stories of the Winter-Killer, some new myth, they slip down mountains in the snowmelt.)

  The two of them step out of the tree into a sort of patio, flat tiles under their feet scoured smooth by years of sand. The tree is in the center, broad canopies of fabric stretching around it to provide shade. He’s not sure if these are market grounds or some deserted festival space. It has to be a lot of work, keeping a big tree like this alive in the desert. The area is deserted, save for members of the Hand of Ord who hurry to confront them.

  “Halt,” one orders, “what is your business here?”

  Keyleth raises a hand to the back of her neck, under the curtain of her hair, and unclasps an amulet he hadn’t noticed earlier. It’s a simple enough pendant, a circle of metal inlaid with a rather large sapphire. She shows it to the guards, who move cautiously toward her. Keyleth doesn't seem to be skilled at putting people at ease. She's tall enough that the guards have to look up at her face, and doesn't seem inclined to make herself smaller. Scanlan  _ hums  _ softly, an agreeing sound, and one of the armored figures relaxes slightly. 

  After inspecting the flat disk for a moment, the first guard withdraws and gives a polite nod. "Do you require any assistance with your business here?" 

  "We're fine, thanks," Keyleth replies, putting the - badge? pass? seal of approval? - back around her neck. The guard nods, satisfied, and they step back to their patrol.

  Scanlan clears his throat quietly, to get her attention."So, you're in good with the guard then?" 

  She flushes a little, and he wonders if it's a tactic; some affected embarrassment. But he's good at seeing lies, and she hasn't lied to him yet. Maybe he's too harsh, too suspicious. 

  (Ioun is gone, is missing, and he's feeling harsh.) 

  Keyleth nods, smiling a little. "I know J'mon Sa Ord, we met when I was younger. That's who I'm going to talk to about, well, all of this. Do you know them?"

  "Can't say I'm very familiar with the ruler of the city, no. I know they exist, but we've never actually spoken."  _ How do you know them? How far back do you go?  _ He's heard scraps of tales of her, but not in Ank'Harel, not in the entirety of Marquet. 

  "Oh," she seems thrown for a moment, wondering if her foot's in her mouth. Good recovery though, since she continues, "Well, that's where I'll be, in the tower." 

  She means the tower of the Cerulean Palace, he knows, rising up above the Scarlet Oubliette. It's an interesting quirk of Ank'Harel, Scanlan's always thought, that the main prison is right below the seat of power. Maybe it's a dragon thing, one of J'mon's instincts. 

  Scanlan nods. "I'll be around the city," he offers, "Meet back up here?" 

  "Okay, great! Uh, goodbye them. See you here, then. Later. You know, I'm just gonna go now." And Keyleth turns away, a little bit awkward, in the direction of the palace. Nah, that can't be an affectation. It would be painful to fake that kind of friendly awkwardness. Still, as he slips through the alleys of the city and steps into a different face, Aes Adan wonders. So Keyleth Winter-Killer meets with the Soul of the Jeweled City. 

  A fly on the wall for  _ that _ conversation would have a story to tell.

\---

  The heat of the city curls around Keyleth like a shawl, a blanket - she sweats beneath it as she walks through the palace grounds, approaching the tower itself. She catches glimpses of people moving quickly through hallways and along paths, hurrying to complete their work before the day really heats up. Autumn in Marquet is different than in Emon. Seasons here are different altogether. They don't have winter here; at least, not any kind of winter Keyleth can recognize. And these aren't the kind of plants that turn fire-red and honey-gold to herald a coming coldness. The plants in Marquet are shorter, stouter, more enduring. 

  (Still, their greens and yellows deepen as she passes.) 

  The desert is a comfort for Keyleth, who has few long friendships and few opportunities to make them. That makes it worth it, to climb the winding stairs of J'mon's tower. There are a lot of stairs but hey, better sweating than being cold. Keyleth's never been cold in Ank'Harel. 

   She takes a moment to straighten her antlers, her shoulders, her spine, and starts up the stairs that curl through the tower.

\---

  Aes Adan is a dangerous man; he embodies a side of Ank'Harel that's constantly shifting in the dark, eating itself and sacrificing limbs to stay just a step ahead of the Hand of Ord. The underworld of the Jeweled City is all about advancement and looking to the future - new drugs, new trade, new card games - which means new information, if one knows who to talk to. Scanlan's always been very good at that. 

  (It's a balancing act for him, playing Aes Adan. The performance started as a way to get through closed doors and into back rooms, a caricature of an underworld man, but it changed, shifted into a figure of the city. To last, here, one has to be a mix of charisma and viciousness, even in the counterfeit furniture business. It's a cutthroat show in front of an unfriendly crowd, and if he gives them an inch they'll take more than a mile.) 

  Coming to the city was a long shot, honestly, when it came to their god-shaped problem. At least there's a _ chance  _ here, he knows, at this great intersection of old and new. History in Marquet is on a longer scale, years instead of seasons, and where there's history, stories, a scrap of a will - there's a way.

  He walks through the market, listening and  **_Listening,_ ** open to the song of the city around him. There, a grandmother scolds a pack of children. There, a musician plucks out an old song so a few passerby will smile and relax their guard. There, a merchant hums as he considers a buyer's offer. For Scanlan, like this, the whole world can be made of music. He follows the slow crescendo of tapping figures and thoughtful humming through the city streets and the music twists around him, all chaos and life. 

  Scraps of words filter through, curses and habitual calls to the gods as a baker burns their thumb and a gambler reaches for her dice. None of it means anything. Well, all of it means something. It's just not anything he's looking for. 

  Still, the song shifts, rhythms of coin clinking and bets being placed as he steps into the casino. Aes Adan is a dangerous man who hates being wronged, but the key to playing a part convincingly is to work the flaws. The Meat Man likes to gamble. 

  It puts him in the center of a hundred conversations, as people filter in and out of the building, as dealers change shifts, as pit bosses approve bets. The center of the casino can be the center of the world, if he wants it to be. If he listens well enough. 

  So he places his coin and pulls his cards. Life is a gamble, a story, a song, Scanlan knows. You have to bet and shuffle and play along if you want to  _ win. _

  (Ioun is missing and the danger in his blood pulses a steady beat underneath it all. He very much wants to win.)

\---

  Keyleth climbs hundreds of stairs as they spiral ever upward; it takes forever, it takes no time at all. ( _ She climbs a mountain every winter,  _ a storyteller murmurs, _ to bring Spring through the dark curtain of the sky. _ Her father, graying at the edges, recalls a bright-eyed six year old who tripped over every rock in her path.) She's never asked why their tower is so damn tall, they'd probably say something like "mindfulness." Keyleth harbors the suspicion that J'mon likes to be tall, to be as close to the sky as they can while maintaining a presence on the ground. 

  Finally she reaches the door at the top of the tower - it's deceptively simple, wood with some carvings dancing across the surface. The handle is shaped like a dragon, though, with tiny sapphires for eyes. The metal is warm under her hand as she pushes the door open.

  Noontime sunlight filters through heavy glass windows, casting warped puddles of light on the stone floor. Gauzy silk curtains hang from the ceiling, waving gently. In one corner, tucked into the shade, is something like a garden - if the pots and planters of a garden were all made of precious metals, inlaid with gems. Plants spill over the sides of their rich containers, green and yellow and purple-leaved. The faint sound of wind chimes sighs through the air. 

  The room should feel imposing, she knows, with the height of the tower and the throne set to draw the eye. Yet when Keyleth inhales, deep, and exhales, she is calm. The warm benevolence radiates through the room, and a tension in her spine softens, melts. 

  J'mon Sa Ord, Soul of the Jeweled City and Ruler of Ank'Harel, sits relaxed on their throne. The corners of their delicate mouth curl into a serene smile, and their burning eyes are gentle. If she didn't know better, Keyleth would never know they were a dragon. 

  "I have not seen you in some time, Keyleth." 

  (In that shaded corner of the room, succulents drop their leaves to the ground, and the scraps twitch as new plants curl from them. A cactus flower opens.)

  "Does it seem like a long time to you?" she blurts abruptly, feeling her face warm. The heat, of course, it's very warm up here. "I mean, it's nice to see you." 

  J'mon laughs softly, a brass sound tempered with amusement, and rises from their throne. "In the long term, no, but I try to put people at ease. Time passes differently for others." They cross the room, long-limbed and graceful, to scoop the new sprouts from the floor and tuck them into a pot. 

_  Gardeners, _ Keyleth thought, _ I'm surrounded by gardeners. Even the dragon is a gardener.  _ J'mon's footsteps are quiet on the floor, but the sound rings in Keyleth's ears, the ghost of distant cymbals. She shakes herself out of listening, moving over to the plants. 

 "I. Well, _ we  _ need your help. Myself and the others like me." 

  J'mon hums, quietly tending to the planters. 

  "The gods are - did you know the gods are gone?" 

  They nod. "If it affects the people of my city, I make myself aware of it." 

  "Do you have any ideas, then? Because I don't know," Keyleth's voice picks up speed, layers of sound, "I don't care about them, you know that, but I can't let them just  **_abandon_ ** **-** " 

(A root twists around J'mon's fingers as they settle the plant in new soil. Across the room, a window catches the green reflection of Keyleth's glowing eyes.)

\---

  Aes Adan has luck on his side today, the cards in his hand tell him, and the dealer grins when he flips a tip her way. Dangerous man, Aes Adan, but he always tips well. 

  (They say he made a deal with a demon. They say he can't die.) 

  Scanlan goes through the motions, easy to be this lie. He barely has to remind himself of the character. Within himself, he's listening, **_Listening_ ** \- 

  Something shifts, one sour note on the gold-silver-copper edge of the song. Like something at the edge of his vision, the end of a nonsense string of lyrics. And he can smell it, abruptly, the smell of wet leaves and rot and incense - 

  Aes Adan folds his hand and leaves the casino. In the crush of people at the entrance, no one notices him vanish away. Scanlan Shorthalt slips through the crowd, invisible and  **_Listening._ ** He touches his hat, reminds himself that it's there. Memory is a weapon, is a trap, is a distraction but. 

  There is a chanting whispering through his memory, and he has a few unanswered questions. 

  (In Ank'Harel, they say Aes Adan can't die. Scanlan Shorthalt knows they're wrong.) 

_ If these are the same robes _ , no, they're the same he's sure of it,  _ what are they doing here?  _ Invisible, silent, Scanlan follows the sour note, the smell of rotting forest. He watches the dark robes of the Cult of the Knife twist down a side alley and his fingers itch for a weapon. He feels his voice warm up. 

  ( _ Rage, rage,  _ Ioun reads aloud once, _ what do you think it's about? _

_   Dying,  _ he offers from where he's flipping through a different book. 

  She smiles. _ I think it's about being alive. _ ) 

_   What are they  _ **_doing here?_ ** He follows, watching, and Aes Adan is brutal, sure, dangerous when wronged. He's a businessman, though, and knows when to cut his losses. 

  The Meat Man's got nothing on a classic Shorthalt revenge. 

  (He thinks of Kaylie and the echo of her scream.)

\---

  J'mon watches, waits for Keyleth to spell it all out, every ounce of resentment and rage and duty she's feeling. There's a lot to unpack and her words are full of thorns and poison but Keyleth is _ wronged, _ the world is  _ wronged.  _

  (She doesn't know what she is, not really, but it's probably some god's fault. What's this, then, a test? Honestly, fuck that.)

  J'mon walks to one of the thick windows and gazes through the glass at their city. They have watched this patch of life in the desert for the last four hundred years. It's a heavy weight to carry, but J'mon is a dragon, all brass and wind and no small amount of power. They can carry it. 

  Keyleth is not a dragon trying to carry a city. She is a woman trying to carry the entire world, every single faithful person crying out to the unanswering skies. She wants to do the right thing, to help people, and it's terrifying. 

  It shouldn't be this way, she knows, the world is broken. It isn't right, that the gods are distant and expect people to worship them and then leave. It's selfish, to make people rely on you just because you can. 

  The world is broken, the Ashari know, they guard the places where the planes grate against each other. The world is a broken place, a mishmash of puzzle pieces that don't quite fit together. This, this is more chaos, more injustice and it is disgusting. 

  And she is surrounded by gardeners, by her father and Kerr and J'mon, but sometimes she wants to burn it all down, set the whole mess on fire. It feels awful, to want that, to say it out loud, but she is so angry.

  Spring is a kind of violence. It's the sun burning at frost on the ground, it's roots burrowing into stone, it's cracking a frozen landscape open like an egg. Part of Keyleth is breaking, is killing, is clearing away dead branches so new plants can sprout. 

  ( _ Sometimes breaking is making,  _ Kerr writes.  _ I know, I know,  _ she thinks, _ and it hurts. _ ) 

  Keyleth doesn't cry, in the tower room over Ank'Harel. Her words spill out like a flood and eventually she's just breathing heavily. Some part of her is burning, some part of her is always climbing the mountain, always killing Winter, always facing an impossible problem. Now, she bows her head and breathes. 

  "I had an enemy once," J'mon says, "that I could not kill. Not a god, though he thought he could be one. Another dragon." 

  Keyleth looks up. 

  They stand quietly, gazing over the city. J'mon is old and their eyes blaze, caught in a distant memory. 

  "What did you do?"

\---

  Scanlan stalks after three robed figures. On the wind, he hears the whisper of a war song. The sour, dissonant sound of the cultists is slowly being overtaken by the sound of  _ him. _

  (His daughter buries a dagger in a strange throat and screams.) 

  He watches them slip past guards and scribes and merchants, through back alleys and side streets. They're moving in the direction of the palace, he realizes, in a strange route. Eyes slide past them, people blink in confusion when the group passes. 

  (Scanlan doesn't really know much about the Cult, not beyond the name. He knows they worship someone like him with a dangerous fervor. And he's pretty sure that if they're in this city, winding towards the palace, they're after someone there. Someone like him.) 

  The three figures move into a narrower alley, one that forces them to move in a single file line. The air goes quiet, as Scanlan reaches out and  **_nudges_ ** sound away. 

( _ Oh hell, Keyleth. _ ) 

  When the bolt of lightning burns through the three cultists, they don't see it coming. Three bodies fall with low thuds, smoking faintly. 

_  How do they know,  _ he thinks, _ what do they know, what do they want from us?  _

  Scanlan stashes the bodies in another alley, where one of Aes Adan's people will come and clean them up. Then he starts making tracks for the tree he and Keyleth first stepped out of.

\---

  J'mon gazes down at the city with a distant look on their face. Like a ghost in her vision, Keyleth sees a shadow of their dragon form. It's strange, to see scales and not see them, to hear a thousand tiny brass impacts and not hear them. 

  "We fought," the dragon says in a deep voice, "over the desert. I did not kill him." 

  "I don't understand." 

  "He was strong, dangerous, and he fled. Once he was gone, he was gone. What do you do, Spring, with an enemy you can not kill? With a force of nature, with a god?" 

  Keyleth steps up to the windowsill, looking at the horizon. The city below is so small from here, like an entirely different world. Her heart aches, exhausted by duty and rage. Still, something stirs - the turning of the seasons, the moment before the first gasp of Spring, Keyleth stands on a great precipice of change - 

  "Keyleth," the great guardian murmurs, and their voice is a thousand metal sounds. 

  (Where Scanlan has stashed his faintly smoking corpses, they shift and melt, dark sludge sloughing off the bones. In each strange ribcage, dark green leaves, waxy and as big as a hand, unfurl.) 

  J'mon's presence is a comforting weight against her back, familiar. 

  "You have to Banish it," they say. 

  A coldness shoots through the room; as if, impossibly, a cloud has covered the distant sun.

\---

  Scanlan waits in the patio they first arrived in, leaning against the tree they stepped through hours earlier. He's not sure what to tell her, if the whole "hey I just maybe saved your life" thing is worth mentioning. The important part, really, is that he didn't get any of what they came for. He is absolutely no closer to solving the problem, no closer to figuring out what's happened to Ioun, no closer to fixing the world for his daughter. 

  Keyleth walks to the tree, and she looks tired. She looks burdened, an idea heavy in her grasp. That's a good sign. 

  "Good conversation?" he asks, and her answering smile is a little weak, but it's there. 

  "A productive one, I think. Have you got any ideas?" 

  "I'd rather hear your successes than list my failures, friend." 

  Keyleth nods, accepting that. "J'mon had an idea; do you know anything about the Rites of Banishment?" 

  (There's a locked bookshelf in Ioun's place, chained shut. It hurt to look at it too long, and she didn't like to talk about it.  _ Doesn't  _ like to talk about it.  _ Come on, Shorthalt, head in the game. _ ) 

  "Uh, I've heard the name? That's some old, classic, send-it-to-another-dimension type of magic, right?" 

  "Yes. So they think it's something like that, maybe a modification or a barrier of that kind of magic or something. Like a wall put up in front of the Divine Gate." 

  Keyleth is one of those people who moves her hands a lot while she talks, and he can see the idea taking shape in her fingers. It's the first shred of potential since this entire mess began. 

  "I might know somewhere where we can get some info on the whole," Scanlan wiggles his fingers in a spooky motion, "Banishment thing. Let's meet up with the others, and I'll tell you all about it." 

  "Can I at least get a hint?" 

  As they step through the tree, back to the windy clearing, he gives her a showman's grin. 

  "We're going to break into a Library."

\---

  The wizard chants and power swells in the room, swirls across the mirrors. An awful wailing sound emits from the side of Gatshadow Mountain.

  When he reaches for her human hand, Raishan whirls on him with tooth and claw. It’s just as satisfying as she knew it would be.

  The spell hums and she seizes the edges, stares at the fabric of the world and  _ tears. _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: A brief look at what Raishan is up to (hint, it’s bad news), and the band gets back together.  
> Thanks so much for reading this! I still really love these characters and I’m excited to keep writing this. Your comments encourage me to keep writing, and I really appreciate getting feedback on this story!


	5. with the teeth that bite so sharp

  Raishan did not emerge fully-formed for the first time in a cave in the side of Gatshadow Mountain. If this story were her only one, it would be pathetic indeed. “Oh yes,” fools would say, “She emerged from ash and nothingness just to plunge the world into chaos.”

  As if some newcomer to the game could pull off this feat, this step across the board. She’s a master of her craft, vicious and triumphant.

  Raishan is not a completely unknown figure in the world of whimpering ants. She’s fallen out of fashion these days, as they prefer nobler, simpler stories. Still, there are a hundred stories about her,  _ old  _ stories, and each is different from the other.

  They say she was born when the first candle blew out, was born in the twisted rituals of a mad dragon priest, was born from the pyres that ended the Age of Arcanum. None of these things are true. All of these things are true. She is the great Deceiver, the curl of discontent in every genius, the resentful voice in every hero’s ear. (At the end of the day she’s a dragon - but it’s helpful,  _ useful,  _ for people to believe she’s something else.)

  The world around her is still young enough to tell stories like this and believe them.  _ Pathetic fools,  _ who do not accept their own shortcomings. Surely it’s  _ her  _ fault, when their plans fail. Still, it is somewhat useful to be a story. It means they have expectations of her - things she can dodge, subvert, heighten,  _ use,  _ whatever the moment calls for. It worked with this wizard, who saw a Raishan who could be bargained with. It’s worked so far on Thordak, who thinks her unswervingly committed to his goals. 

  But a boot doesn’t keep her word to an anthill, and the only goals that really matter are her own.

  The secret she knows, that so few people ever figure out, is that the prize at the end of the day is power. That’s why the wizard wanted her promised knowledge, that’s why Thordak heaves destruction over the land - but they’re both wrong about it. Real power is not just knowledge, is not just destruction. It’s seeing all the pieces on the board and being a player instead. In this moment, suspended in time, in this second before she claws the skin of the world apart so it can scream and reform how she wills it, Raishan revels.

  And makes her move.

\---

  They feel it coming. Keyleth and Scanlan step through the tree from Ank’Harel, back into the forest, and the hair on Keyleth’s arms stands straight up. Scanlan  is caught in the inhale before a solo, hanging on the edge of his sudden nerves. Everything is turning, the whole delicate balance of the world is wavering, on the edge of the very next moment.

  Vex  **_pulls_ ** Percy and Trinket with her through the forest near Emon, bending two places together. In the clearing, she sees the other two before her anxiety spikes and she finds her bow is in her hands. Trinket presses his considerable bulk against her side, a low growl emerging from his throat. Percy feels the weight of his rifle on his back and knows it’s loaded, is suddenly  _ very  _ aware of how many shots he can take before it needs reloading. The momentum of some great unnoticed plan is peaking, he can feel it humming in his fingertips, and he’s entirely out of the loop. The feeling is disquieting to say the least, like a shadow looming up behind him.

  Grog is drinking his ale and Pike is smiling, elbowing his side as she jokes despite the heat in the air. Vax looks between them, breathing without the smell of blood in his nose for the first time in hours. For one golden moment, beneath all his fear and restlessness, he feels peace. 

  Then, like lightning across the sky, a red-yellow-orange energy  _ snaps  _ over Vasselheim like jaws clamping shut. Hot wind roars through the streets, rattling the tavern windows. Somewhere, Vax can hear them, people are screaming. 

  He lunges forward across the table, spilling his own mug as he gets a hold on Pike’s shoulder and grips Grog’s extended hand as tightly as he can. And Vax lets go of himself, and every shadow in the room shoots forward to engulf the three of them.  _ Back,  _ **_back,_ ** he thinks, to the dagger on his sister’s belt.

  (Away from the forest clearing, where the seven of them gather under an ominous autumn sky, Headmaster Cerkonos shouts commands that have no chance of being heard over the sound of flames and screams. Pyrah burns.)

\---

  It would be nice to say the plan was entirely her own masterwork, drawn up in one of her more boring decades. A spark of something interesting born from her own musings. Raishan’s held it close, cradled it and fanned it into fire hot enough to burn the world down, but it came to her in a deep, whispering dream. 

  The truth is, she has been sick for a very long time. It is a hollow, horrible feeling - a limit on herself that she does not know how to outthink. It’s like a void where her power should be, a siphon on her spirit. No matter how many times she changes shape, the rotting, vanishing feeling persists. Sickness is different when you’re a near-immortal curl of smoke and lies, but Raishan knows it will consume her eventually.. Knows she will lose herself to the blank uncompromising end of her life, if she doesn’t do something about it. It’s an obstacle, it’s just another obstacle, because Raishan cannot afford to be afraid. 

  So when the dream comes, just as she’s unearthed another useless archive, she is unafraid. Raishan is  _ tired,  _ tired of losing ground in herself, tired of a looming finish line, tired of  _ waste.  _ Her sleep is deep and dark, curled in the shadowed cult hideout of a failed god-creature. The whisper seethes with anger through the dream, something about being wronged. It’s yet more boring talk, honestly, just another angry dream. But something in it sticks in her mind, follows her into the waking world. An image of a burning, frozen, crushed city - a hint of what she could wield, if the dragons could only work  _ together.  _

  It’s an impossible idea, but it sparks in her breath, all that potential. It howls through her mind.

\---

  It’s comical, almost, the way the Vasselheim three crash into the clearing. Any other day, it would be a punchline. Now, today, here in this clearing - the moment snares all seven of them as the  _ other  _ echoes try to make sense of it.

  Scanlan hears a hundred windchimes warping, a terrible sound. He sees somewhere dark and damp, where a natural stone floor cracks,  _ heaves  _ upward. The words of a hundred poets sit in his mouth, all clamoring to explain this new threat. His throat aches, vocal chords buzzing slightly.

  Vex is standing on a mountainside, unnatural cold searing her skin. The icy wind makes her eyes sting as her fingers flex on her bow, as she knocks an arrow and draws it back. A distant screech splits the air, and there’s frost in her hair. 

  Pike sweats, suddenly standing back in Sarenrae’s temple. The followers there pray fervently as their candles slowly burn. Then faster, wax softening as they bend sideways. She hears a hundred distant people, a thousand, an unthinkable number all screaming out at the darkness.

  For a moment he’s in Whitestone, watching Cassandra’s forehead wrinkle in concern. His sister turns from the panicked messenger and walks deeper into the castle and he has no doubt she’s fetching a weapon, the only one he’s ever made for another person. Then, Percy’s in a cave on a mountainside, as shards of mirror scatter to the ground. Draconic yellow eyes meet his own - an enemy, one he did not account for.

  Grog is on a battlefield, is in a desert - sand crunches under his feet as two dragons wheel through the air miles above him, snarling. One’s some kind of metal, shining in the sun. The other’s all flames. Grog is in another pub in Vasselheim, and the bartender’s pouring out the good stuff like the world is ending. Shit, maybe it is.

_ Fuck,  _ Vax is standing in the ashes of his mother’s house. He watches himself, younger, unspooling the memory like a thread and watching it, over and over. She’s humming at the kitchen table, sewing a button on a shirt. She looks out the window. She looks afraid, and fire comes down on Byroden. It repeats. The younger him is shaking, tears streaming down his face. The pain of it is strong enough, still, to nearly bring him to his knees.

  Keyleth watches it all falling to ruin. She hears Cerkonos call through the flames. A roof collapses, a home incinerates. She sees the shape of death in the sky, a dragon of pure fire, raw and elemental. A quarter of her civilization burns. 

  And then they’re in the forest clearing, blinking at each other. And Keyleth’s fury leaves her in a scream.

\---

  Vorugal and Umbrasyl, ice and stone respectively, are easy to convince. They have great and outlandish demands and it’s easy to promise  _ yes, yes, you can have Draconia. Yes, no one will find your den if you make it beneath Kraghammer. Of course, yes.  _ They are wildly impatient, bestial, powerful, and she sets them on the board to wait for the next round of the game.

  Thordak is... a more complicated matter, because Raishan actually needs him. Fire is, of course, a purifier; she’s certain he could burn away her sickness if she can just play her cards right. He’s got so much, he’s the heat at the heart of the fire plane, and if nothing else can cure her, surely  _ he  _ can. 

  (“I’m you,” she lies, frantic and subservient in their first conversation. “I’m an echo of you.”

  His growl permeates the dream around her, a burst of flame.

  “I’m smoke, you’re fire. It’s in my nature to follow you.” Raishan’s hit a rhythm now, placating, negotiating. “I just need one thing in return.”)

  It takes years, to successfully put the plan in motion. She has to infiltrate the Fire Ashari, to observe the portal to the fire plane, to craft a spell to break it open and find a wizard both powerful and foolish enough to cast it. There are several false starts - a druid catches on and needs killing, a wizard realizes the spell will require more than a symbolic sacrifice. Twice, the components are wrong and the laboratories are incinerated. 

  But in Raishan’s dreams there is that whisper, that promise of true power. And she will do anything to take it.

\---

  Keyleth’s scream breaks the stillness, shatters through the air. All fury, all grief, Scanlan flinches away from the sound as it boils through the air. She stalks around the clearing like a predator, hunting, flames curling around her clenched fists. Her eyes are a solid wash of green energy, and the trees around them creak and groan under the weight of new growth. 

  “What just  _ happened, _ ” Percy demands, eyes flashing. “What  _ was  _ that?”

  Vex and PIke both start talking, Vax pale and quiet between them. His edges are fuzzy again, but his sister grips his wrist to hide the fact that her hands are shaking. The three of them are speaking, comparing visions as Keyleth storms across the ground. In her wake, flowers sprout, bloom, die. 

  Her pace doesn’t slow, but she  **_changes_ ** \- an eagle, a wolf, a sabertooth tiger, tail lashing in fury. Grog can see she’s drawn tight to the point of breaking, right up against the edge of her control. And shit, it’d probably be cool to wrestle a tiger while he fixes her anyway.

  So he steps into her path and she crashes against him, snarling. Keyleth doesn’t quite claw or bite, but she twists with all the strength of a big cat, trying to break his grip. Grog holds on even as she twists them both to the ground, even as awful sounds pull from her throat, a woman crying from inside a tiger’s bones.

  “C’mon, Minxie, I can’t understand you like this.”

  The tiger in his arms struggles a few moments more, before it shrinks back to Keyleth, red hair damp with sweat and tears dripping from her glowing eyes. She shakes, and Grog pulls her into a tight hug. (Being as big as he is is really comforting, he knows. Sometimes Pike likes to ride on his shoulders and challenge the whole world, sometimes she just needs the rest of everything to go away for a bit. Maybe, right now, that’s what Keyleth needs.)

  “ **_My people,_ ** they’re  **dying.”** Her voice still growls at the edges. Grog lets go, helps her to her feet.

  “Well, then,” Scanlan offers from a polite distance away, “Maybe we can help them.” He turns to the discussing group with a brisk motion. “Oi, you lot, stop comparing dreams. We have a destination.”

  Grog’s hand is a warm weight on Keyleth’s shoulder, and he rumbles low, “This what you want?”

  Wordless, scrubbing the evidence of tears away, she nods.

  (Even as the seven of them gather by a tree, even as she pulls it open... she knows it’s too little, too late. And the rage churns in her gut, because what’s the point of all this power if she can’t use it to save people?)

\---

  Thordak is already unstable by the time Raishan can reach his dreams. He’s been in the fire plane long enough to get delusions of grandeur - she knows he thinks he’s using her. That he thinks he’s smarter than her, that he’s turned her ambitions towards his own. In a sense, they do share a goal in the Conclave.

  Thordak is older than her, stronger in the classic sense. If he wanted to, he could kill her. It would be difficult for him, surely, but on a battlefield he could be her ruin. So she has a thousand plans, catalogues every hint of weakness in him and keeps a few hideouts she can run to. 

  There’s a trick to their talking, while he’s in the fire plane. In these conversations, she retains a measure of control. At any time, she could simply vanish from them, could scatter to the wider winds of dreaming. Once he’s in the world though, once she breaks it open, there’s no safety net. 

  It’s worth it, though, for a cure. The constant threat of death from an unstable leader is leagues better than the certainty of death she faces now. And when she triumphs over that? That’s the point of all of it, that victory. She can be the shadow behind a power that shapes the entire world. For a while, she’ll probably even be content with it.

\---

  Pyrah is cinders and death and no dragon. Keyleth’s anger is unabated, but she’s gentled it somehow, buried the ember deep inside. She speaks to Headmaster Cerkonos and his band of survivors, but they have no insights for her, only a name: Thordak the Cinder King.

  Vax stands among the ashes and charred bones, a useless prayer on his lips, leaving him in a whisper. There are no answers to be had from the Raven Queen. The dragon came straight out of the portal and tore through Pyrah without a second’s hesitation.

  Vex calls Trinket to her necklace so he won’t burn his feet on the ground. He’s a creature of nature, her bear, and he understands death - but he’s still the cub she raised and she doesn’t want him to see this. It’s just... empty spaces, where people should be. It would only upset him. The need to hunt this dragon curls through her, sings in her muscles and tendons and bones. She feels sharp, her focus clear. Scanlan walks beside her, humming along to the hunting song, and it’s so, so clear. He’ll answer for this, Thordak Cinder-King.

  Percy is honestly floundering, and he hopes no one else has noticed. It’s just that he’d rather thought he had a handle on the world at present, the established power structures and various conspiracies in place. Here, in the ruins of a settlement, he thinks of Whitestone. (His thoughts always turn to Whitestone eventually, but now he worries, too.) Next to him, Grog frowns.

  “Sucks, when the world hits you in the face.”   
  “Indeed it does.”

  They stay for a few hours, fighting other creatures that have stolen out of the fire plane. It’s nothing near the fight Keyleth wants and completely different to Winter. Still, the violence eases something in her, like steam escaping a pot. She falls into it, magic turning in the ground around them. Grog sticks close to her, watching her back, and after the first close shave she’s more careful with her magic, more in control. Keyleth is still full of wrath and murderous intent, but with the others around her it feels like she can push it down and  _ focus _ .

  Word comes to them after it’s done and Pike’s healed up gashes and burns. Somewhere under Kraghammer, deep where the stones sleep and troublesome creatures lurk, there’s a rumor of a dragon. Vex’s eyes are distant as the message is relayed, as the  _ other  _ part of her shouts for the hunt. The deep darkness is not something to trifle with, but she knows there is a dragon there.

  So, of course, they resolve to go immediately. Except it’s night time in Kraghammer, so they camp outside with the choice to plan at dawn.

\---

  Raishan has lived a long time knowing that she will lose herself if she is conquered. To madness, to death, it doesn’t matter. Nothing at all matters except for her goals. Thordak wants sycophants and the whisper in her dreams wants something more than that, and both have miscalculated with her. Raishan is many things: a liar, a genius, calculating and cruel. She is not a simple  _ tool  _ to be used.

  There are stories of her, songs of her - there will never be another like her, she is absolutely certain.

  When Thordak denies her the cure, when he demands they take the world first, well... well.

  Raishan vanishes to a hiding-place, and doesn’t relay the mutterings of a challenge heading Umbrasyl’s way. He wants a bunch of rocks for a den, he can defend them himself.

\---

  Pike watches the dawn peek over the horizon from their camp outside the entrance to Kraghammer. The edge of the sky is rosy pink and her mace lays heavy across her lap. She can hear Grog’s snores at the edge of the group.

  Beside her, suddenly, is Vax’ildan. He tilts his head in acknowledgement. “Your thoughts, Pickle?”

  She pushes herself to her feet, weapon in hand, and looks at her skinny friend. Stringbean was a good nickname, yeah.

  “Well,” she says, scratching the back of her head while smiling what she fervently hopes is a reassuring smile, “it’s not gonna be easy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it, I hope you enjoyed this chapter of the story! There’s a lot more going on now for our heroes to contend with - it wasn’t as dramatic as interrupting the Emperor’s speech, but the dragons are on the scene. Raishan’s flight and Thordak’s unknown location won’t stop VM from hunting up some dragons.  
> While writing this I thought “wow, the fire ashari stuff is really rough, I wish someone would hug Keyleth” then I realized, I could just do that. She’s having a tough time of it, but sometimes having a cry and then fixing a murderous rage in your heart is how you cope (just look at Percy, like, in canon) Sorry if the timeline of this chapter is a little unclear; I had this pile of Raishan content that I didn’t want to leave behind the scenes because she’s evil and I love her.  
> Thank you for reading this! I really care about this story and these characters. Not gonna lie, I reread the comments on my fic constantly - they really mean a lot to me! Let me know what you think!  
> Next time is the Vax interlude, after which the gang will go on an Underdark Adventure. See you then!


End file.
